I am a PhD Candidate at IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain. I am also part of the European Doctoral Program.

My current research interests are economic history, human capital, and long-term growth.

My supervisor is David de la Croix.

I will visit Northwestern University in Winter and Spring 2024.

Work in Progress

Early Modern Academies, Universities, and Growth

This project explores the impact of the upper tail of human capital distribution on European economic growth from 1500 to 1900. I investigate the role of academies, of universities, and of the interaction of these two types of institutions. Using an original database of scholars, I define this interaction as the set of scholars active in both the university and the academy located in the same city. I proxy the economic growth of European cities with their population. I develop the main results of the paper implementing staggered event studies. I also include additional results using recent DID estimators for heterogeneous and inter-temporal treatment effects. In future stages, I will develop an instrumental variable approach to further mitigate endogeneity issues, and I will also exploit data on innovation and patents by country to deepen the analysis.